


Unreconciled

by Linden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Pre-Stanford, a little bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5097857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight, maybe nine hours out on a Greyhound bound for California, Sam is in the middle of Nebraska, alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unreconciled

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】Unreconciled/悬而未决](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122886) by [Milfoil_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milfoil_c/pseuds/Milfoil_c)



> Title hijacked from Peter Bradley Adams' [stupidly beautiful song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQlqAj_YRKg) of the same name, which is, not coincidentally, the most perfect Sam-leaves-for-Stanford song in the world. Seriously. Go listen to this song.

**August 2002**

The bus pulled off the highway just before six, somewhere in the vast grasslands of Nebraska. Sam hadn’t yet slept, buoyed by hurt and anger and worry and sadness, and also a traitorous sort of joy.

‘Half an hour, folks,’ the driver said, as she brought them to a halt with a rumble and a hiss. Only a handful of other passengers were aboard, none of whom was stirring, and so Sam shuffled out alone into the grey light of early morning. There was a line of diesel pumps ahead of him, and a long line of parked semis beyond, and there was diner maybe a quarter mile down the road, with a sagging canopy above the front door and a neon OPEN sign burning beside it. Sam kept to the shoulder and walked down to it, hands tucked into his pockets, Dean's bracelet on his wrist, his sneakers and the ragged hems of his jeans getting damp with dew in the long grass. Crows were feeding on a dead raccoon across the way. 

The diner’s front door was propped open, conversation and laughter and the clatter of silverware spilling out into the cracked, weedy lot. It was warm inside, busy with truckers ready to start their day’s run, and rich with the smell of eggs and lard and bacon that was peculiar to every diner Sam had ever eaten in, from toddlerhood to nineteen. The familiarity of it was a comfort he didn’t want.

He eased through the crowd to the counter—or tried to, at least, clumsy as he always was these days with the height he still wasn’t quite accustomed to. He didn’t realize he was waiting for Dean to snark at him for it ( _real graceful, Frances_ ) until there was nothing but silence at his shoulder, and a sudden, hollow ache hit him like a hammer in the chest.

‘Mornin’, honey,’ the grey-haired woman behind the counter said, just as he was trying to convince himself that it was something in the air in here that was putting that tight, prickly heat behind his eyes. ‘What can I get for you?’

With a glance at the menu chalked on the board behind her, he dug out four quarters from his back pocket, put them on the counter. ‘Just a coffee to go, please,’ he said, clearing his throat to rid it of its thickness, and shook his head when she asked if he wanted anything else. He did, badly, but he had only seventeen dollars in his wallet, and seven days until his meal plan started at Stanford, and, well, Sam had always been good at math.

He hadn’t planned this all that well, and he knew that, but there just hadn't—what the hell else could he have _done_ , once John had started roaring, besides grab his gear and the little money he had and go?

When his coffee arrived a few minutes later, it came with a Styrofoam carry-out box packed with eggs and sausage and bacon.

Sam blinked, looked up. ‘Ma’am, I didn’t—’

‘Two things my mama-in-law made me promise when she gave me this diner, sweetheart,’ she said, as she closed the top and tucked in the tabs and handed it to him. ‘Never make pie crust without lard, and never let a pretty boy leave hungry.’

He felt himself flush, and she smiled at him, something soft and kind in her eyes. ‘You look like you’re a young man who’s goin’ places,’ she told him, gently, even though Sam was certain he looked nothing of the sort: bony and awkward and two days from clean, in clothes that had been old a year ago in the Alabama thrift shop where he’d found them. ‘So you come back someday, and you tell me about them.’

***

Outside, back near the bus, sitting on the curb by an empty fuel pump, Sam ate his breakfast and drank his coffee and watched the sun come up in a gentle spill of color that flooded the eastern sky. His right side was cold, from where Dean wasn't sitting beside him.

There was something like hope in his chest, and there was something like grief, and there was a bone-deep, heart-deep ache that was the sound of Dean’s voice and the shape of his hands, and the silk of his skin and the sweetness of his smile, and nineteen years' worth of memories of his brother at his side or at his back or in his bed.

 _Time heals all wounds,_ civilians said, but Sam had a hunter’s certainty that that was horse shit, that time did nothing of the sort. He wasn’t certain it would fade, this ache, not soon, not ever; wasn’t certain it wouldn’t worsen, wouldn’t burrow deeper and deeper until it cracked him wide open, broke apart his bones and left his tender insides laid out to the open air. 

He hadn’t planned this well; he really hadn’t. He couldn't breathe without wanting Dean ( _Dean, Dean, DeanDeanDean_ ), and he had no idea what he was going to do when he got to California: no idea where he was going to stay, how he was going to eat, how he was going to buy books or sheets or shampoo or any of the other things the housing office had mentioned on their list of Suggested Items to Bring to Campus. But all the same, for the first time in his life, as he leaned back on his hands and lifted his face to the early morning light, there was a taste like freedom on his tongue. 


End file.
